Using Facebook to reach out to new clients

Facebook can be a simple yet effective way of reaching out to potential new clients.

Facebook is by far the most popular online brand with 53.5 billion minutes per month spent on the social network in the US alone, according to the Nielson Company. In the UK it was reported last year that almost half the nation was now on Facebook with over 30 million users on the site. Assessing these figures you’d think it would be easy to reach out to new clients by using Facebook to drive your marketing performance…wrong! There are rich business opportunities out there for companies, but only for those that have an effective strategy in place.

It’s always difficult putting a winning strategy together in order to succeed in your business goals and that’s why we are going to offer you a few tips to help you in the right direction.

Getting users to like your page

It’s going to be difficult to attract new clients, if you have no one to like your page. A straightforward tactic to get people to like your page is by simply recommending your page to your personal friends list. If you are an admin on your company page, there is the option on the right side panel to recommend this place for your friends to like. Using this feature is an effective method to increase your brand awareness and the number of likes on your page. The option to recommend your page is available to every admin on the site.

By getting your friends, colleagues, existing fans or customers to like your page is great way to get started, however a lot more has to be done in order to attract further likes on your page. There has to be an incentive for users to click the like button at the top of your page. A tried and tested technique would be to run a competition in order to create a buzz around your brand. In our eyes, the strength of your brand signifies your company’s ethics and values so that people can make a real connection with your company and what you do. If you look around at some of the biggest companies in the world today, they all have CSR teams in place to manage the reputation of their brand. According to Edison Research and Arbitron, 80% of users prefer to connect with brands via Facebook, leaving Twitter behind in a distant second place with a mere 6%.

Let’s say that there was a company called Wendy Cakes and their primary social objective was to increase the number of likes on their Facebook page. A contest for those who liked their page would generate positive interest. Launching a competition to see who can come up with the best new flavour cake to sell-in store with the prize being a box of cakes or cash sum , could be a simple yet effective method of attracting and engaging with new followers.

Interlinking between sites

Facebook may be seen to be the top dog in the social network; however other social platforms are just as important in increasing your social profile. It’s essential to interlink between these sites to communicate with your target audience and to steer an effective multichannel marketing strategy. Steps to be taken, would be to simply post links or create tabs between your main site and other social networks, whether it’s from your homepage or LinkedIn account.

Focusing on Facebook, posting videos from your YouTube account is a fun and informative way to engage with users. Drive users back to your website by posting continuous blog posts to your page. Connecting your Facebook and Twitter accounts, allows for all your tweets to be shown as Facebook status updates to make your Facebook page more current and topical, providing that you update your Twitter page on a regular basis. To do this you can visit the following link, www.facebook.com/twitter.

For tips and advice on how to improve your performance on other social networks visit my blog, Using social media to optimise your online performance.

Spread the message

It’s not all about concentrating your efforts on Facebook; it’s about spreading the message about your company as a whole. Ideas of how this could be done, include:

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• A newsletter promotion/email marketing campaign with a link to your website and social media pages.
• Having an email signature, so that every time you send an email there is a link to your website and social media pages.
• Having a link to your website/social media pages on your business cards.
• A link from everyone’s personal page who works for the company to your main site and social media pages.
• Word of mouth. Nothing beats spreading the message about your company than you personally communicating to others how great your company is!

Landing page

Facebook itself has useful features that can help to draw in traffic. The best of them is the option to have a custom landing page on your site. A landing page allows your company to focus on the message that you want to communicate for your audience, whether it’s a new product, a special offer or to simply get people to click on your like button. If you look at Lakeland’s Facebook landing page, click here, there is a clear call to action to get people to like their page, using easy on the eye text and imagery.
 

 

It’s important to make sure that your ‘like box’ is featured prominently. Plenty of traffic should follow if you have a well-designed landing page with clear indicators to a prominently placed ‘like box’. Another useful feature would be to install the WP FB like plugin to your blog posts.

Relevance

It goes without saying that the content on your Facebook page should be relevant to your company and what they do. It’s important to get the right blend of status updates which informs your followers about your latest company activity and latest industry news. You can engage with your competitors by posting useful insights, questions, contests, photos and videos that will make users want to come back for more. For instance on Wendy’s Cakes Facebook page, there could be:

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• Questions to engage with their audience…E.g. what’s everyone’s favourite cake??
• Cake pictures.
• Video cake recipes.
• Latest confectionary news.

This is a small sample of content that can be used. It’s important to put your stamp on your content and to make sure that it reflects your company and what you are about. It’s not essential to stick to your industry when using Facebook. It’s good to mix it up with bit of fun and not to be so serious, whether it’s having an update about somebody falling off their office chair or commenting on Lady Gaga’s new haircut, however this should be done in moderation.

Another useful tip to get the conversation going by mentioning your Facebook page in your blog posts and everyday conversation.

Facebook Advertising

The number of companies spending on Facebook ads is increasing at an astounding rate. According to IgnitionOne, Facebook ad spend of all clients grew 281% from Q2 2010 to Q2 2011. Impressively, ad impressions for all clients grew 200%.

Running a target ad campaign using Facebook advertising can help your company to reach out to potential new clients. An example of the success that can be founded via Facebook affiliate marketing can be seen on the site itself by visiting the following page. Advertising on Facebook allows companies to target their exact demographic. For example if Wendy’s Cakes could target their campaign for females aged between 25 and 35 with ‘cakes‘ as one of the activities that they ‘like’.

Monitoring your traffic

Monitoring your traffic and your users’ most popular activities on your page is a good way to keep on top of your Facebook business page. It’s a real chance to carry on optimising the areas where you are performing well and to improve upon sections that aren’t performing so well.

To do this you can track growth using Facebook insights and then use this knowledge to analyse what activities are driving the most growth and duplicate this activity. It’s also useful to take a look at your demographics to see who your most popular is and perhaps target more of your content at this group.

So what have we learnt?

Essentially, we have learnt that Facebook can be an immensely powerful tool if used in the right way to attain new followers and potential business. Essential tips to accomplish include:

• Getting users to like your page.
• Interlinking between your sites.
• Spreading the word about your Facebook page.
• Having a landing page.
• Staying relevant to your company and industry (most of the time!).
• Perhaps dabbling into Facebook advertising to see if it benefits your company (not essential).
• And to monitor your Facebook traffic.

Using social media to optimise your online marketing performance

Social Media is a great way for companies to drive their marketing activities and to optimise their online performance.

It’s all gone social

Social media has led to a fundamental shift in communication, reshaping the way that companies interact with companies. It’s having a great impact on everyday life and companies are continuing to embrace it in order to increase their online presence, engage with customers and to build business.

It’s a mistaken belief that you can simply setup a Facebook and Twitter account, post a few status updates and then bobs your uncle, customers are flocking to your site to purchase your products/services. Only if it was that easy, the fact of the matter is that it can be very difficult to see though a social media strategy with many underestimating the time and effort required to succeed in the digital space.

We believe that all companies should know the fundamentals when building their social network and that’s why we are going to offer you essential tips for running your prime social channels:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blog
• YouTube

Facebook

Companies should setup a welcome section for its fan page. This will let people know what they can expect from following your brand. It helps to increase signups, your conversion ratings and your ROI. A great landing page with a clear call to action can help your company to save money on advertising costs.

The more likes and diverse comments that the company gets on an update, the more people’s walls and homepages they are shown on, which in turn gives greater exposure to your company. Facebook is a great way to engage with your audience by posting questions, contests, sharing photos or videos and sharing content that will make someone want to keep coming back to the page. It is a great way to drive interactions with your audience.

Google Plus

Using similar tactics to that of Facebook for Google Plus would be an effective way of increasing your presence on that platform. Google Plus was launched last year to compete with Facebook and remains a relatively new social platform with no set guidelines on how to best optimise your marketing performance using this channel. A few quick tips to get you started are:

• To share your blog info on your profile.
• To use strategic keywords and phrases in your status updates, as Google Plus is more open to searching and will allow you to rank higher in traditional Google searches.
• To write unique engaging content for status updates.
• To upload relevant and captivating pictures/videos.
• To make sure that your profile is open to search.
• To use circles to communicate with potential clients, media and prospects. For example you can create a circle for prospective clients and then provide them with industry news, media, and case studies and so on to suit them.
• To use Google Plus hangouts, where you can chat live on video from your computer or mobile device with up to 10 people.

Twitter

When using Twitter, companies should look to share insightful content around their industry and to engage with smart people on subjects that are most meaningful to the company. It is important to build relationships first and then to promote your content.

Spread links that can be retweeted by your audience, whilst retweeting yourself. If you are wondering how to shorten links so that you have more space to comment, simply visit www.bitly.com enter the URL and your link will be shortened to copy and paste. When tweeting it’s good to include the company’s blog post links but it’s more important to comment on other peoples’ tweets. By promoting others over yourself, the company’s twitter following will grow and there is the chance to engage people whilst driving them back to your blog.

The @ feauture is a good way to reply to your audience when you can. In addition, links should not always be about the organisation’s business topic, it’s good to mix it up by having fun every so often and as a result steady traffic should role in.

Blogging

For many companies blogs are their focal point of their online marketing operation. It is an opportunity for them to establish its identity and directly communicate with those interested in the company’s services. However it’s no longer enough just to write content on a consistent basis. There is so much competition in every niche online nowadays that you have to stand out from the crowd and be unique. To do this it is essential to write compelling content, be an authentic representation within your field and interact with your community as much as possible. Everything you do has to be about the reader in order to serve their needs. Adding media such as pictures and videos can help increase interest in your blog.

It is essential to build up relationships with other bloggers, ways to do this include:

• Content promotion off the blog.
• Commenting on other blogs.
• Quickly responding to comments made on the company’s blog.
• Automatic distribution and syndication.
• Repurposing of content.
• Encouraging social popularity.

These are all ways of building relationships. In the long term after building relationships, there is an opportunity to ask other bloggers to write in return for writing about their products and services.

YouTube

YouTube can be a great way to be entertaining whilst also being informative about your company’s products/services. It’s an effective method of marketing, using your visual creative input rather than relying primarily on written content. Videos on your YouTube channel could include:

• Advice guides for products/services.
• Client testimonials.
• A company background.
• Past, present and future projects.
• Product overview.

After Google, YouTube is the second most popular search engine. It is a useful platform to help build your brand.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a valuable source to network with others in your industry. Essentially, it’s an effective way for working professionals to explore business opportunities with each other. However, LinkedIn can also be a useful source for enticing traffic. Adding links on your LinkedIn profile and email footer can prove to be very effective in building traffic. It would also be positive to post links to social media and blog sites.

To find out how companies are using social media to spearhead their multichannel marketing strategies, visit my multichannel marketing blog.

Here is a great post from the social media top dogs themselves at Mashable, explaining the key behaviours required to succeed in your strategy.

Burglars using social media to target victims

A survey conducted by security firm Friedland suggests that most burglars are using social media to plan their crimes.

Google Street View is playing a pivotal role in burglars’ crimes. Three quarters of burglars convicted in the past year, admitted that the site was essential in their planning. Google Street View allows you to zoom in on individual houses with burglars using it to gauge security and potential break in routes.

Facebook and Twitter are also being used by criminals. Users posting updates can unwittingly let robbers know about expensive new purchases such as HD televisions or times and dates for when they are out.

In addition to using social media, a fifth of burglars said that they observed homeowners daily routine before carrying out their raids. The survey indicated that the average home burglary took 10 minutes to commit. Furthermore, burglars are said to net on average up to £500 with the majority targeting cash, electrical goods and jewellery, whilst there are those who target documents such as passports.

Only a quarter of burglars said that guard dogs put them off, however 60% stated that they would be discouraged by targeting homes they knew had security alarms.

Convicted burglar, Richard Taylor, said:

“We’re living in the age of the digital criminal and people are taking advantage of social media to access information about would-be victims.”

“We’ll tell them even when we're going away on holidays. We will let them know that we’re not in. We’re inviting them round to our house.”

Expert at Friedland, Jonathan Lim said:

“Taking simple measures, including cutting back trees and shrubs to remove potential hiding places and installing simple alarm systems are all good, cost-effective deterrents that all homeowners can implement to remove their home from the target list.”

Google Plus opens doors to everyone

Google + is now open to everyone after two and a half months of closed testing and being an invitation-only service. On the company’s official blog, Google’s Social Vice-President of Social Business, Vic Gundotra wrote:

“We’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups.”

Google is looking to expand its presence in the social media market with Google + and when quizzed about competitors such as Facebook on the BBC, Gundotra responded by saying:

“Well, we expect people use many different tools to share. The most popular mechanism people use to share today, still is email. Then, of course, there are the other services you mentioned.”

In a way it was an apprehensive response by Gundotra but more so it was realistic. Facebook has been around since 2004 and has accumulated 750+ million users, leaving Google + languishing behind with around 25+ million users at present.

It’s by no means doom and gloom for Google, far from it. To have obtained more than 25 million users at such an early stage is an impressive feat within itself, considering that it took Facebook over three 3 years to acquire 20 million active users. It’s true to say that Facebook was an innovator in the social media market and had no real marketing drive when first launched compared to the powerhouse that is Google. Nevertheless to have 25 million users’ early doors is a great springboard for Google + to go on and achieve great things.

What does Google Plus have to offer?

Google has provided a number of new features on the back of the public launch of Google +, which a writer from Slash Gear sums up nicely:

“Want to video chat via G+ on your phone? You can do that today. Want to broadcast a video for the public? You can do that today. Want to share your screen, share a live-drawn sketchpad, work with Google Docs, or name a Hangout to handle your specific needs? All of that is live today.”

Improvements to Google + Hangouts, includes the ability to utilize them on Android devices (versions 2.3 and higher), however you are unable to use Hangout features on the iPhone and Blackberry. Google + Hangouts is where you can chat live on video from your computer or mobile device with up to 10 people. Beyond the ability to support two way chat for up to 10 people, there are a number of other standout features with the most pioneering app on Google Plus being more about work rather than play. Google Docs is now available live over Hangouts, making live face-to-face collaboration possible on the web for free. Hangouts can be viewed to be a rival of BlackBerry’s BBM and iPhone’s Facetime.

It's the first Plus feature that's categorically different than anything Facebook can do. Facebook has made a number of changes recently, but it’s unlikely that they will go in this direction. Google Docs provides cloud-powered collaboration - outside of the pricey enterprise market. Hangouts allow people to work remotely together and all of these capabilities are for free and without adverts.

Perhaps, Skype can feel more threatened than Facebook. If Hangouts starts off positively and continues to grow in popularity, there is a possibility for it to takeover Skype in the video conferencing scene. Although you can have a call conference with over 20 people on Skype, video calls can only be carried out on a one to one basis compared to 10 people on Hangouts. In addition, the ability to synchronize Google Plus documents while on a video chat is a feature that Skype cannot compete with. Real-time collaboration could be at the heart of success for Google if they communicate the positives and benefits well, which they often don’t. There are a number of Google products that have failed to take off in the past due to their lack of marketing, including Blogger, Picassa, Videos and many more.

There are those who believe that Google + will fizzle out and at best will be a social media equivalent to what Microsoft Bing is to search engines. However, if Google + carries on being innovative, offering new experiences with features such as Hangouts, there is no reason as to why Google can’t make a real go of it. Facebook has felt threatened enough to recently launch a number of new features challenging what were initially Google’s selling points. The social network has renovated friend lists and has made changes to the news feed, which are reminiscent of Google + Circles. It will be interesting to see how the next 12 months will pan out for the two social networking platforms.

At present, Google is trying to aggressively push their social media channels to compete with the likes of Facebook. They invested in Google Plus and will continue to do so in order to increase its popularity to be on a level platform with Facebook.

One in three UK companies block social media

According to research conducted by Clearswift, up to a third of companies block employees from accessing social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

The internet security firm revealed that there was growing fears about internet security. These fears were down to recent high profile hacking incidents, such as the loss of customer data from the Sony Network.

Chief operating officer at Clearswift, Andrew Wyatt observed:

“It is clear that we have seen some significant changes in attitude towards social media use in the last 12 months. Businesses have reacted to the series of high-profile data leaks and have become increasingly nervous about its usage from the workplace”

“Social networking sites often have little to do with data-loss incidents, but they have become guilty by association, because they are seen as having an impact on a company’s brand,” he added.

The number of companies in the UK blocking social media has increased by a fifth in the past year, as 53% of managers indentify social media as an issue for concern. Banks have for many years had blocking policies in place to prevent employees from accessing social networks, it now seems that a number of other industries are following suit.

Moneysupermarket.com has always had a relaxed approach to employees accessing social networks, but they are now looking to implement guidelines for staff to use social media. At the Anglo-Dutch energy company, Royal Dutch Shell, employees are not blocked access from Facebook, however if employees choose to access the site, they are reminded with a pop-up screen not to use personal sites during work hours.

On a global scale, a fifth of companies block their employees from accessing social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Last year, German car manufacturer, Porsche, banned their employees from using social media channels due to their fear of industrial espionage. Although farfetched, firms have become very wary of social media and the potential threat that it can have upon their companies.

91% of companies had become so concerned about data loss that it was stopping them from adopting new technologies, according to Mr Wyatt. He warned that moves to block social media channels could suppress innovation and alienate employees who rely on social media to communicate. If companies were to introduce stricter policies on social networking, 18% of employees said that they would feel demotivated as a result, while 19% said that they would simply work around the rules and 4% would think about leaving!

Ironically, at the same time as restricting staff using social media, companies are looking to increase their social media presence for corporate communications. 31% of UK companies have stated that they are looking to further invest in this area over the coming year. Social media is having a great impact upon everyday life and companies are continuing to embrace it in order to increase their online presence, engage with customers and to build business. Tesco for instance, has over 15,000 followers on their twitter pages and the company’s PR team maintains several Facebook pages for the company, including their main page which has up to 330,000 likes.

Exciting iPhone app helps you to discover new films

The iPhone app “Can’t Wait” sends new film trailers to your phone, allows you to share your favourites and reminds you when the film is going to be released in cinemas. This innovative idea has paved the way for social movie discovery and keeps film fans up to date with the latest releases.

Most of us get excited when we hear about a new film that we can’t wait to see at the cinema. Can’t Wait is the perfect app to trigger that excitement and to find out about the latest flicks. By connecting to Facebook or Twitter to create an account, you can access the app to watch the latest movie trailers. If there is a particular film that gets you buzzing, there is the option to click on the “Can’t Wait” button to share the activity with your social network friends. The application will then send you a reminder for when the film will be released and give you the option to buy tickets.

Co-Founder Eric Florenzano says:

“We want to send you new trailers … help show you what your friends are watching and remind you when movies come out.”

“People want reminders for the movies they’re excited about seeing.”

There are those of you that may be thinking that this app is no different to Flixter or other film focused apps; however Florenzano states that Can’t Wait is uniquely focused upon building excitement:

“If you look at all apps out there, they’re all about what’s out right now,”

“It’s a useful thing … they’re totally tailored for when you’re in the mood to see a movie. What we’re trying to do is be all about what’s coming up … it’s a fundamentally different experience.”

Can’t Wait has a slick, simple and user friendly interface. The app sources its trailers from YouTube, an effective strategy to avoid licensing costs and one that keeps it dependent on YouTube’s API. This can at times be a liability as a broken YouTube API can lead to app users not being able to access trailers for several hours at a time.

Florenzano believes that the app expands beyond movies and into consumer electronics and video games. Can’t Wait receives a percentage of ticket sales purchased via their app and sees further opportunities to make money in featuring studio trailers, offering group discounts and video game pre-orders.